With new North Trail plan, hope amid skepticism

Tuesday

Apr 2, 2013 at 12:14 AM

By JESSIE VAN BERKEL

There's the Yummy House, where neighbors wait in line to satiate their craving for Chinese, and Goodwill Manasota where the greeter hustles to keep her “Welcomes” and “Thank yous” on pace with customer flow.

They are beacons of hope for Sarasota's North Trail — new, thriving businesses. But a few businesses' recent success is not enough to turn around a neighborhood burdened by crime.

And a North Trail Overlay District, which commissioners passed Monday in hopes of spurring new development, also will not go far enough to revitalize the area, residents and city staff said.

Commissioner Shannon Snyder referred to the plan, which allows for increased building height and requires new buildings to be closer to U.S. 41 and farther from neighboring residential areas, as a “stop-gap” measure.

What the North Trail needs is a form-based code that will give predictability to developers and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, most of the city officials agreed. But that would be an expensive, long process.

The commissioners voted instead to pass a version of the proposed overlay district, with two amendments. It will sunset and will not include administrative review — a process where city staff would have been able to approve certain projects rather than having them go before the Planning Board.

“It's like pulling the front teeth,” said David Morriss, who was a member of the North Trail Redevelopment Partnership and helped write the overlay district plan.

“But there's still some teeth left,” he added.

The partnership was a grassroots effort, and members worked for three years to come up with a plan to change zoning — seeing that as the only option while the city remained short on funds.

Many residents said Monday that the plan the group came up with does not represent the wishes of the neighbors, who feared administrative review would silence their voice on projects.

More than a dozen people showed up to voice support or outrage over the plan — the common sentiment, however, was neglect.

“It's a never-ending process,” said Carolyn Heath, who worked on earlier efforts to revitalize the area. “Either you want the North Trail to attract a cultural environment where people are walking and it's safe, or you just want it to be the stepchild it has always been.”

Ryan Chapdelain, a chief planner for the city who has worked on the project since last summer, said it will easily meld into future development and will not prevent the city from revisiting the situation and trying to fix the awkward land use, which many called “sawtooth.”

“I think it's a great starting point,” Chapdelain said of the overlay.

The city has been in the middle of the heated overlay effort, Chapdelain said, just trying to “shepherd this through.”

“I think this is about as much consensus as we can expect to receive on this,” he said.